The rebirth of Speedball 2

We hyperventilate over the return of Brutal Deluxe

Speedball 2 is nothing short of an all-time 16-bit classic, from the glorious reign of the Bitmap Brothers. It wasback in the daywhen eight-directional scrolling was something to splash on your box, and the Bitmaps delivered not only a technically impressive game, but one with gameplay that felt so natural and balanced that manuals, and a life outside your bedroom, became immediately unnecessary. And now, with Mike Montgomery of the Bitmaps in a supervisory role, Kylotonn is remaking the classic retro future sport. A number of questions spring immediately to mind. Mainly, what are they going to do to it? Yann Tambellini, the creative director of the whole shebang, fields this vague question.

“We’re going to keep a big part of the classic game - for example, it’ll be playable from the top-view,” says Tambellini. This is reassuring; during a teaser tour of the 3D arena, we recently had a horrific vision of first-person gameplay. We’ve even dreamed of playing this version, and it was shit. Tambellini continues: “There’ll be two modes for players. The older people can have classic gameplay, with the original controls and just the one action button.”